Jim’s title says it all: “Louisiana Democratic Party Chair Runs Away From Reporters.” …Well, not quite: the reason why Karen Carter Peterson is running away from reporters is because she claimed yesterday that opposition to mandatory health insurance was based on racism, which is probably not a smart thing to say in Louisiana*.
Continue reading This may be the actual NADIR of the Louisiana Democratic party.
This one is a little late, thanks to various annoying, yet dull, technical difficulties. The race in question is Louisiana’s Third District: the loss of a House seat in redistricting has caused two incumbent Republican Congressmen to face each other in this November’s… “Election Day primary” is probably the best way to describe it: everybody runs at once, and if no candidate gets above 50% then the top two candidates go to a runoff. One of those candidates is Rep. Jeff Landry. We talked for a bit about the race:
Jeff’s site is here.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
Because it’s starting to look like that might happen:
Subtract the results of the Second Congressional District, and it is possible that the votes for Libertarian and no party candidates in all of the other U.S. House contests will exceed those cast for Democrats across the rest of Louisiana, belying the notion that state Democrats are anywhere near a sustained and successful rebuilding effort.
The final qualifying statistics registered Republicans having one or more candidates in all six districts, in five of which they are favored overwhelmingly, Libertarians contesting all but the First, and Democrats competing in just three, and in the Second their Rep. Cedric Richmond is the heavy reelection favorite.
Continue reading #rsrh I do not object to the Libertarians becoming Louisiana’s opposition party.
…can be found here. One of particular interest is this one of selections from Bobby Jindal’s speech:
I was there, of course, and I’m with Allahpundit: can’t we just pick Bobby for VP, and break early for lunch?
We’re always happy to hear from Gov. Bobby Jindal, and after the speech that he gave last Saturday* (as I noted at the time, you could see the crowd collectively thinking Why, Bobby here would make a perfectly good Vice President) he took a few moments to talk to me about… you know. Stuff**.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
Continue reading RedState Gathering: Gov. Bobby Jindal (R, LA).
Background: unions in Louisiana – apparently untroubled by the fact that the Democratic party of that state decided to drink hemlock in the 2011 governor’s race – have launched a recall petition against Bobby Jindal! Ooh, scary! On the other hand, as the title notes the unions have a pretty achiveable target number to hit: 56. That number would be one more than the (reported*) signatures on the last Jindal recall petition.
Via @DLoesch. I understand that a lot of people are tired of this nonsense because of the way that the Democrats keep wasting taxpayer money in Wisconsin with these recalls, and rightfully so; but this is merely the unions wasting time that could have been spent in digging the Democrats out of their current bayou hole. …Swamp? Pond? The metaphor doesn’t really work; sorry.
Moe Lane
Continue reading #rsrh Louisiana unions’ gubernatorial recall petition has a target number of 56.
Background: in the hope of reminding people of their existence, the Louisiana Democratic party fake-endorsed Bobby Jindal for VP, in the hopes that this will get him out of Louisiana. Lord knows that the Democrats haven’t been successful any other way – and, hey! I guess that this means that the LA Democratic party is conceding that Obama will lose in November.
Anyway, Jindal advisor Timmy Teepell came up with the thought that immediately came to my mind:
I’m glad to hear there’s still a Democratic Party in Louisiana…
Continue reading #rsrh QotD, I’m Glad To Hear It Too, Timmy Edition.
Tuesday, the news came out: Rep. Bill Cassidy (R, LA) has hired Timmy Teepell for his 2012 re-election campaign. If you’re wondering why I’m telling you this, this is why: Cassidy is a two-term Congressman who won almost 2/3rds of the vote in the last election (and did not get hurt by this round of redistricting) and Teepell is the guy behind Bobby Jindal’s 2011 re-election… well, ‘campaign’ is not exactly the right word. ‘Kinetic strike from orbit‘ would be a good deal more accurate. In other words, Teepell is not exactly needed for Cassidy’s 2012 race.
One of my colleagues – somebody who is much more knowledgeable about Louisiana politics than I am – concludes from all of this that this means that Gov. Bobby Jindal will not be running for the 2014 Senate seat against embattled incumbent Mary Landrieu, and that Rep. Cassidy will. Hard to argue with the logic; snapping up Teepell early and giving him a chance to get used to Cassidy’s existing campaign team in what should be a pretty easy election campaign sounds like a good idea. And it’s certainly true that Landrieu’s Senate seat – one of the last remaining bastions of Democratic power in Louisiana – is a glittering prize. But it does leave one question: if Bobby Jindal doesn’t want to go from Governor to Senator, then where does he want to go?
Because let’s not pretend: Bobby Jindal’s a good guy and a good governor, but he’s also a politician… which means that he’s ambitious.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
We’re in day two of the three day qualifying period for the gubernatorial primary, you see. Another reminder: the only person that the Democrats have had so far who is willing to stand up and publicly oppose Bobby Jindal is… Tara Hollis, schoolteacher. She is not particularly expected to win – but there’s nobody else right now, and that situation is being repeated all the way down the ticket.
I want to make this clear: this is not a knock on Ms. Hollis, whose most egregious crime seems to be retaining the charmingly naive belief that the Democratic leadership actually cares overmuch about their oft-stated principles. But it is a fairly comprehensive knock against the Democratic party of Louisiana, which has taken multiple body blows for the last half decade. It’s curious to note: for all the verbiage written about how devastating the Katrina response supposedly was to the GOP (particularly Bush), I can’t help but notice that in the state where the devastation was strongest the most obvious change was that Louisiana went from a largely Democratic-run state to a largely Republican-run one. It’s also curious that this hasn’t been reported on more.
Well, OK, so it’s not curious. Thou Shalt Not Question The Media Narrative, and all that.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: Bobby Jindal for Governor. Better safe than sorry.
Aside from Ms. Tara Hollis, of course – note that I’m not going to make fun of her for running. I could, but there’s something endearing about meeting a Democrat who actually still believes that her party is really committed to democracy and egalitarianism and anything else besides the creation and perpetuation of a paternalistic nanny-state run by people who think that they’re too smart to work for a living. Besides, Hollis will have that presumption beaten out of her soon enough by her fellow-Democrats; there’s no need for me to get involved even if I wanted to.
Anyway. It’s the middle of July; the deadline for declaring is in less than two months; and there ain’t nobody else stepping up to the plate. What gives?
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: Bobby Jindal for Governor, of course. And he should come to the RedState Gathering, too.
